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Not my experience at all. I'm still able to make a choice when presented with many choices. When I go to Whole Foods with a desire for dark chocolate, I end up making a choice, or a few choices and eat them at different times. Whole Foods and Trader Joes has a greater selection of the things I like. It's convenient. I don't need to venture to multiple places to find the foods I like.
Now I use Amazon Prime Now. Even more convenient.
Dating sites serve as a tool for meeting people you otherwise wouldn't meet. There was a slim chance I'd cross paths with my kind of guy in-person, given my day to day routine and the places I frequent and the fact that, statistically, they represent a very small minority in the U.S. So...dating sites, not apps, made the search far more practical and efficient. When presented with several matches, you can GTK them and decide who is the better fit.
Much like a lot of things we do online. People haven't stopped buying houses and cars because they're presented with a lot of choices. Same for everything else we buy online. Books, music, clothes, shoes, gadgets, etc. If anything, there's potential to make better choices by having more information available to consider. Meeting in-person on the basis that a guy fancies my looks amount to going in blind and a brief chat doesn't change that. Nor does lusty feelings because...oh pretty!
I agree. Another thing is...we see guys here talking about "approaching" (*snicker*) women in like grocery stores and such. Online at least we know that the person is there to date, they are "available" to date in some manner. You aren't walking up to someone who, for all you know, is married (not all married people wear a ring) or in a very serious relationship and not interested. People who are on a dating site are at least on the market in some capacity.
No, he said they talk then when he asks to meet it turns into a "no".
How would you suggest they decide if they would like to meet -or not meet- a person without having any conversations?
If after the conversations they don't want to meet, wouldn't a person figure out it was because of the conversations?
I suppose its more fun to blame another thing on evil wimmenz, instead of the conversations we have with Nice Men that lead us to not want to meet them, but I'm not going out with anyone or to meet them, unless we discuss a few things. Obviously I'm not alone in this need to communicate and see what kind of communication there is first, otherwise there would be no option for messaging. This is the point of messaging, to determine if we want to meet.
I agree.
But one can communicate a simple reason as no chemistry etc., then block user if goes south. But I don't want to hijack the thread and turn it into ghosting discussion.
Dating in general seems like a pain. Especially now because people are trying way too hard to force connections. Most of them probably found their first love when they weren't even looking, and yet it completely slips their mind how NATURAL that feeling was, as opposed to talking to random strangers to see if there's a connection. That's just how I personally feel about it. When I was on tinder just to see what it was all about, I didn't want to talk to any of those guys and if I did, it fell flat. It just felt forced. They were attractive I just wasn't into it.
When I used OLD now over eight years ago, I found it somewhat effective as an ancillary tool but too much time to plow through. I think it has overall trended to be a hook up tool more than finding a partner tool.
My experience is that the majority of women enjoy the slow unfolding of getting to know someone. The 'hard swap interface' of putting oneself out there in a broad way takes away the fun of a 'meet cute' story, many women have been conditioned to expect. I put a good effort into conveying the way I think and found this to be totally worthless - (journals in OKC and explaining my answers to choice binary questions for matching purposes to give insight to my thought and humor) - as no one who responded ever referenced content. Note, the few quality ones all wanted to meet in person within a short time.
I did meet a few very nice women (and attractive) who were simply at different places in their lives (a college professor with two children, a woman who served in the navy, and a few others - one whom I even met while on a business trip she was in Seattle, so I wouldn't write it off completely, but I think it has to be used strategically. I even had one woman my senior by about ten or fifteen years try to match me up with her friends daughter.
EHarmony was useless as its 29 variables to find best match had few and they were always distant and I was not into a long distance relationship effort.
Match.com was short lived although I corresponded with a seemingly classy woman from Texas (although being the internet it could have been a guy in Moldova!).
When I used OLD now over eight years ago, I found it somewhat effective as an ancillary tool but too much time to plow through. I think it has overall tended to be a hookup tool more than finding a partner tool.
Dating apps are a whole 'nother ball game. Tender and the like would not interest me at all if I were single and dating today.
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My experience is that the majority of women enjoy the slow unfolding of getting to know someone.
Sure. I preferred to kick that off online.
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The 'hard swap interface' of putting oneself out there in a broad way takes away the fun of a 'meet cute' story, many women have been conditioned to expect.
I mean, the swipe-based apps wouldn't interest me at all, but not because it isn't cute story-worthy.
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I put a good effort into conveying the way I think and found this to be totally worthless - (journals in OKC and explaining my answers to choice binary questions for matching purposes to give insight to my thought and humor) - as no one who responded ever referenced content. Note, the few quality ones all wanted to meet in person within a short time.
That's unfortunate. The men who put considerable effort into their bios, answers, quizzes, etc., were high on my list. This includes my husband and several other men I dated and interacted with. Some I remained friends with for some time. I definitely enjoyed having bios and other accessible, valuable information during my search. It made initial messages and conversations intriguing, engaging and worthwhile. My husband answered over 2000 of OKC's questions. I went through his questions and read his essay, er, profile multiple times.
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I did meet a few very nice women (and attractive) who were simply at different places in their lives (a college professor with two children, a woman who served in the navy, and a few others - one whom I even met while on a business trip she was in Seattle, so I wouldn't write it off completely, but I think it has to be used strategically. I even had one woman my senior by about ten or fifteen years try to match me up with her friend's daughter.
Absolutely. If you go in not knowing what you want or how to "market" yourself and who your audience is, you'll find the process overwhelming. Also, location/region plays a significant part in this as well. Living in a rural area or smaller city narrows your options due to fewer available people in the dating pool. This is especially the case in areas where it's common to marry young. My experience would have been significantly different had I not lived in major metro cities. There's no shortage of my type in metro cities.
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EHarmony was useless as its 29 variables to find best match had few and they were always distant and I was not into a long distance relationship effort.
Match.com was short-lived although I corresponded with a seemingly classy woman from Texas (although being the internet it could have been a guy in Moldova!).
I didn't bother with EHarmony. I met several men from Match. But considering there's an overlap of users on all of the major sites, it didn't make sense to pay for Match when the same men were on other sites. And I much preferred OKC's user interface and platform. Hands down.
If I talked to a guy, I was at least willing to meet him in person. Now, after that, I might drop him. And I'd be a bit less honest if it were his terrible teeth or twitchy mannerisms or relentless chatter about Superman comics. That's where the "Sorry, no spark" comments happen.
I have to say, I'm mildly amused that you were just writing in another thread that a guy's looks don't really matter to you.
That's unfortunate. The men who put considerable effort into their bios, answers, quizzes, etc., were high on my list. This includes my husband and several other men I dated and interacted with. Some I remained friends with for some time. I definitely enjoyed having bios and other accessible, valuable information during my search. It made initial messages and conversations intriguing, engaging and worthwhile. My husband answered over 2000 of OKC's questions. I went through his questions and read his essay, er, profile multiple times.
I had often wondered, and other's have too, if that's too much too soon is revealed there. I've seen some people do a basic, but satisfactorily written description, but conclude it with, "Don't want to reveal too much..." and something about how it would defeat the purpose of organic dating. Kind of likening it to a movie spoiler. I mean, before the Internet, you found out about someone while personally interacting with them...witnessing things unfold.
I had often wondered, and other's have too, if that's too much too soon is revealed there.
That's for each individual to decide. Even with as much information provided, there's still room to discover and experience more.
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I've seen some people do a basic, but satisfactorily written description, but conclude it with, "Don't want to reveal too much..."
I'm in the "the more details, the better" camp to cover enough areas of compatibility from the get-go. I preferred not to waste my time, energy and money on months of dates only to discover a serious issue or deal-breaker. I knew things about my husband that could take months or years to come out "organically." Depending on the answer to those questions, a lot of those details and bits of information would have been deal-breakers, orange, and red flags, and since I knew where he stood, I didn't have that feeling of "Oh sht. I wasted a year with this person and we have serious issues" or "he just stuck the whole damn shoe store in his mouth." A year would have been $4000+ in sitter fees. Talk about a waste.
Start speaking nonsense about chemtrails, anti-science, the evils of vaccinations, essential oils can cure diseases, unsaved go to the hot fiery place, that chocolate milk comes from brown cows, and many others, etc.,...next.
But it didn't take weeks or months or years for the real meaty stuff to come out. No "he wasn't like that in the beginning" or "it never came up." that I see a lot in so many relationships.
Not only did I know who his favorite author is, but I knew his thoughts on, say, corporal punishment. Because his answer to the latter, if it wasn't compatible, would have been a flat-out deal-breaker. So rather than find out six months, one, two or three years in when couples may start to talk about having children, and often disagree on a lot of those matters, I knew a great deal about his own philosophy on such matters.
Same for questions like "how would you feel if your kid was LGBTQ+?" and "how do you feel about breastfeeding in public?" (a lot of these are user-submitted questions) I wouldn't have dated a man who had issues with either, and rather than discover a possible incompatibility down the line, wasting my and their time, I could avoid that with the information available. Answer enough questions and you can cover a lot of ground.
Worked great for me.
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and something about how it would defeat the purpose of organic dating. Kind of likening it to a movie spoiler. I mean, before the Internet, you found out about someone while personally interacting with them...witnessing things unfold.
It's not like a movie spoiler. Having details "spoiled" may bum me out if they were major details and twists, but spoilers don't affect my actual life. When details about a person, how they think, what they think, how they behave, what they believe, their background, their goals, etc., have the potential to affect my life and the function and dynamics of a relationship, yes, "spoilers" matter.
And last I checked, relationships that started "organically" still fail. I see it quite frequently. Incompatibilities came out too late. Once couples get comfortable, familiar and kids are involved.
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